The Battle of Stones River

Major McDowell continues:

"On the 26th day of December, we left Nashville and traveled via Franklin and Granny White pikes, concentrating on the hills near Nashville, with the enemy close in front; but General Bragg drew off his army to Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Well will Sunday afternoon, December 28, 1862 be remembered.  The regiment was ordered out of its line on the hill-side, and commenced one of the hardest and darkest marches that can be imagined, toward Murfreesboro. All night, through cedar thickness, roads almost impassible, only kept in the right direction by 'beacon fires,' which were kept burning the entire night, we wended our way, hungry, foot-sore, wet, and wary, not knowing where we were going, but trusting implicitly that 'Old Rosy' and 'Pap' Thomas would lead us only to such places as they desired us to occupy, as we had entire confidence in those worthy and able commanders.  In the morning we reached the Nashville and Murfreesboro turnpike, near Stewart's Creek, and were again in our position in the center of the Army of the Cumberland, with Bragg's army again confronting us.

On the 29th and 30th we moved forward until we almost reached the banks of Stone River.  General Negley's Division had skirmished for position on our right during the afternoon of the 30th and when night came on we bivouacked, and many spent the night in joking pleasantry, reveille on the 31st sounding to scores who had not slept.  Our division (Rousseau's) was the reserve division of the Fourteenth Corps.  Marching along the road we passed General Rosecrans and staff, who seeing our flagstaff broken, banner torn and draped in mourning, called us his 'orphan regiment,' a name which, before the sun of that day set, was doubly applicable. The occasional belching of cannon and the rattling of musketry on our right caused us to keep and eye and ear to that quarter.

About nine o'clock A.M. we came up close to the front and could see orderlies riding hurriedly hither and thither.  A group of officers, composed of General Rousseau with his brigade and regimental commanders was formed in front of the Fifteenth, to whom orders and instructions were given, when, all returning to their commands, we were faced to the right and moved hurriedly to the cedar forest to stem the current of an almost irresistible storm in the cedar glades, where General McCook's (Twentieth) Corps had been violently attacked and were sorely pressed.

Passing in rear of General Sill's division, our brigade got into the same kind of position as that held at Perryville; that is, one on the extreme right wing of the army, with the Fifteenth Kentucky on the right of the brigade.  Here, with instructions to hold the enemy until the artillery could be gotten out of the thicket, we again met the enemy and stopped for a while his triumphant charges.  We held the road until the last gun and caisson had passed safely, at a terrible cost to the Fifteenth Kentucky, for in a short half hour we lost our brave and gallant young Colonel (shot from his horse), in the flower of his youth, being only a little past his twenty-first birthday, and eighty others killed and seriously wounded on that fatal field of Stone River.  Holding our position a little too long, we had to fight both front, flank, and rear to get back to the Fourteenth Corps' position in the center, for the enemy had passed around our right and were enveloping us before we knew it.  Long will the members of the Fifteenth remember the appearance of the 'massed artillery' on the right of the turnpike when they emerged from the woods in its front, and never can they forget the outburst when they got back to those guns, for the earth trembled and thousands 'bit the dust' in the desperate charges made against them.

These battles were, to the Fifteenth, a crucible to test the metal of which it was composed, and 'tried as by fire,' it came out sadly crippled and cut up, but still true and devoted to the old flag of our country. With such regimental commanders as Pope and Forman, and such brigade disciplinarians as W. H. Lytle and John S. Beatty, and the service which it had seen, the Fifteenth was rapidly becoming 'that all powerful piece of machinery which is invincible in war' --a regiment of veterans.

After five days' very hard service in muddy trenches and an exposed position, we entered Murfreesboro on Sunday, January 4, 1863, sadly depleted, but cheerful as crickets, the Confederate army having retired toward Shelbyville and Tullahoma, Tennessee.  After a few weeks rest the Fifteenth Kentucky was put to work building 'Fortress Rosecrans,' a stronghold that became historical.

Here it was re-officered.  The Colonel James B. Forman, having been killed, Lieutenant-Colonel J. R. Snyder resigned, Major H. P. Kalfus cashiered, Adjutant W. P. McDowell promoted, and Quartermaster John W. Clark resigned, Captain Marion C. Taylor, of Company A, was made Colonel; Captain Noah Cartwright, of Company E, Lieutenant-Colonel; Captain W. G. Halpin, of Company K, Major; D.N. Sharp, First Sergeant, Company A, Adjutant, and Woodford Hall, private of Company A, Quartermaster."

~Return to the Battlefields page and click "Chickamauga"~